Clinton

[rowan]

I should add to this, btw, that I attended university in America, and although that was some time ago, I have spent the past two decades living and working within a British/American-dominated expat community, so that I've actually become far more in tune with events in those two nations than I am with my own.

I just wonder why people can't discuss things without trying to silence others with accusations of 'sexism' or 'anti-Americanism' and so on. It's like trying to have a discussion on Israel and being labeled 'anti-semitist' by those who don't want to hear what you have to say. I was responding to what appeared to me a fairly flippant comment about the likely consequences of Clinton's imminent "election" (I peronally regard it as an appointment). There is, of course no prejudice against race, gender, religion or nationality in my views on Clinton. I have been at pains to spell out exactly why I am opposed to her "election" (on humanitarian grounds), and I've also mentioned several times that my preferred candidate would be Jill Stein. Incidentally, almost a million Americans followed her live broadcast on Twitter on Wednesday night, though it barely received a mention in the media...

From the Guardian:

released by WikiLeaks on Saturday, show some of the attention her team paid to courting African American voters.


WikiLeaks praised by Sean Hannity and David Duke after Clinton revelations
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There were worries about Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ appeal to that historically Democratic voter group and angst over whether Clinton should give a speech on race relations. A South Carolina Democratic party official voiced concerns that Clinton hadn’t visited a particular region of the state.

The emails were stolen from the email account of John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman, as part of a series of high-profile computer hacks of Democratic targets that US intelligence officials say were orchestrated by Russia, with the intent to influence the 8 November election.

It was impossible to authenticate each hacked email that WikiLeaks published, but Democrats have openly acknowledged they were hacked and have not pointed to any specific case where an email was altered to inflict political damage.

Some of the emails released on Saturday concerned a debate over whether the candidate should give a speech on race.

Chief speechwriter Dan Schwerin emailed Podesta, communications director Jennifer Palmieri and others in February 2016 to say that, as conceived, the speech would demonstrate Clinton’s “sustained and comprehensive commitment” to improving race relations and her lifelong sympathy toward the plight of minorities in the US.

Both former president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton were clear that the speech shouldn’t be “a big mea culpa”. The former president also said: “We shouldn’t try to defend the indefensible.”

Schwerin said adviser Minyon Moore had raised tough questions about the wisdom of making the speech because it could “unintentionally end up elevating questions that aren’t yet being widely asked and introduce new damaging information, especially super predator, to a lot more voters”.

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Hillary Clinton has ‘nothing to say about Wikileaks’
In a 1996 speech about Bill Clinton’s crime bill when she was first lady, Hillary Clinton described young people in gangs as “super-predators”. Some African Americans find the term offensive and have sought during the campaign to hold her accountable for it. Hillary Clinton has said she regrets using the term.

After a “gut check” conversation with Moore and talks with policy advisers Jake Sullivan and Maya Harris, Schwerin said in the email that the campaign hierarchy was “mostly persuaded” by Moore’s concerns. Instead, he suggested, a decision to push the supreme court nomination issue could replace the race speech.

Schwerin closed his memo with the idea that “if we’re slipping fast, maybe it’s worth rolling the dice and doing the speech. If we’re holding relatively steady, maybe we see if we can ride this out without doing the speech”.

Clinton offered a detailed plan to overcome racial disparities in a February speech in Harlem.

In an apparent effort to court young African American voters in South Carolina’s Pee Dee region, meanwhile, Clinton staffers promised Jamie Harrison, the state’s Democratic party chairman, that his area would not be overlooked. They also offered up some bold names in black entertainment who could stump for votes.

In an email from 28 January 2016, Brynne Craig, deputy director of state campaigns for Hillary for America, summarized a conversation with Harrison, who was unhappy that Clinton had not visited the Pee Dee region, the north-eastern corner of the state, about 100 miles east of Columbia, the state capital.

Craig said he assured Harrison that such a visit was a top priority for the former first lady or her husband. Clinton visited the region in late February and later won the state’s primary.

Craig said Harrison also mentioned the need to bring younger surrogates into the state, not just well-known and older politicians. He said he offered Harrison a partial list of black entertainers who had been asked to travel to the state, including singer Usher, actors Anthony Anderson and Gabrielle Union and athletes Alonzo Mourning and Grant Hill.

Craig wrote: “I feel confident we will be able to increase the amount of surrogates we have in South Carolina – more importantly the RIGHT kind.”


US officially accuses Russia of hacking DNC and interfering with election
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Worries about Bernie Sanders’ appeal to black voters remained strong throughout the primary, although Clinton’s support from that group remained strong.

In a July email, Podesta fretted to other campaign staffers about Sanders, who had challenged Clinton through to the end of the primary process with an anti-Wall Street, anti-establishment message with strong appeal to progressives.

In the email, Podesta wrote: “He’ll be at Sharpton rallies pretty soon,” referring to civil rights activist Al Sharpton. “Still think we should do something with him on VRA [Voting Rights Act] anniversary.”

Sanders visited Dallas and Houston in July for a series of town-hall meetings in southern cities to help boost his support.

Clinton called in to Sharpton’s nationally syndicated radio show on the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act on 6 August, to appeal to African Americans to turn out to vote during the primaries. Her support among African Americans in the south helped her gain a big delegate advantage over Sanders.

[morepork]

Rowan, you probably fuck off with that broad brush. People in America are well aware of the military industrial complex and the need to reign it in. There is still a beating heart in the 4th estate under all that reality TV and info-news, and there is dialogue on the ground. I see it because I live here. The racist fire and brimstone wankers make the mainstream media, but they are not a majority. I agree with you on the need to shake up the establishment and get power back in the people's hands, but sweet jesus, not every American is a clone of Carl Rove FFS. Remember there is a lot of diversity in this country.

This. Very well said Porkster.

You are my boi Coco.

[rowan]

I should add to this, btw, that I attended university in America, and although that was some time ago, I have spent the past two decades living and working within a British/American-dominated expat community, so that I've actually become far more in tune with events in those two nations than I am with my own.

I just wonder why people can't discuss things without trying to silence others with accusations of 'sexism' or 'anti-Americanism' and so on. It's like trying to have a discussion on Israel and being labeled 'anti-semitist' by those who don't want to hear what you have to say. I was responding to what appeared to me a fairly flippant comment about the likely consequences of Clinton's imminent "election" (I peronally regard it as an appointment). There is, of course no prejudice against race, gender, religion or nationality in my views on Clinton. I have been at pains to spell out exactly why I am opposed to her "election" (on humanitarian grounds), and I've also mentioned several times that my preferred candidate would be Jill Stein. Incidentally, almost a million Americans followed her live broadcast on Twitter on Wednesday night, though it barely received a mention in the media...

The chief complaint that critics make about the Clinton Foundation is that the former and perhaps future presidents engaged in a “pay-to-play” scheme, whereby donors—many of them foreign governments—would contribute money to the charity in exchange for access to Bill or Hillary Clinton, or worse, beneficial treatment from the State Department.

On Thursday, hacked emails from WikiLeaks suggest that is precisely what happened when the king of Morocco agreed to host a Clinton Global Initiative summit and give $12 million, but only if Hillary Clinton attended the May 2015 meeting.

RELATED STORY


Clinton Still Hasn't Faced Questions About Pay-to-Play Head On

“No matter what happens, she will be in Morocco hosting CGI on May 5-7, 2015,” Huma Abedin, a top Hillary Clinton aide, wrote in a November 2014 email to several other advisers, including campaign chairman John Podesta. “Her presence was a condition for the Moroccans to proceed so there is no going back on this.”

The timing of the summit was important because Hillary Clinton’s inner circle was planning for the formal launch of her presidential campaign and wanted to clear her schedule of paid speaking engagements and commitments to the foundation, particularly those that could cause political controversy. In January 2015, Abedin followed up with another email explaining in more detail why the future Democratic nominee couldn’t simply back out of the event in Morocco:

Just to give you some context, the condition upon which the Moroccans agreed to host the meeting was her participation. If hrc was not part if it, meeting was a non-starter. CGI also wasn't pushing for a meeting in Morocco and it wasn't their first choice. This was HRC's idea, our office approached the Moroccans and they 100 percent believe they are doing this at her request. The King has personally committed approx $12 million both for the endowment and to support the meeting. It will break a lot of china to back out now when we had so many opportunities to do it in the past few months.
And then, in what appears to be a rare venting of frustration by Abedin toward Hillary Clinton (at least in the thousands of hacked Podesta emails), she wrote this about her boss: “She created this mess and she knows it.”

Ultimately, Clinton’s aides prevailed upon her, and she sent Bill and Chelsea Clinton in her place. But this exchange about Morocco, first reported by The New York Post, is the clearest example yet in the emails posted by WikiLeaks of the type of arrangement that people find most, well, icky about the Clintons. Bill and Hillary wanted a deep-pocketed donor to make a large contribution and foot the bill for a ritzy conference, and the king of Morocco wanted access to the woman who, then as now, was the leading candidate to be the next president of the United States. The Clintons didn’t apparently care that, as the Post noted, Morocco had a spotty record on human rights. The State Department has cited the Moroccan government for widespread corruption, and the government-owned mining company that paid for the CGI meeting has been cited for its own human-rights abuses.

The Clinton campaign declined to comment specifically on the episode, instead delivering the blanket statement it issues on all WikiLeaks emails—blaming Russia for hacking Podesta’s emails and asking whether Donald Trump’s campaign was involved in the breach. Yet based on Hillary Clinton’s staunch defense of the foundation as “a world-renowned charity” at Wednesday night’s debate, she would likely argue that the money from Morocco went to a good cause; that stronger ties promote U.S. leverage; and that her record speaking out in support of human rights is well established.

All of that may be true, and nothing in the exchange appears to be illegal. Hillary Clinton wasn’t secretary of state at the time, and there is no evidence in the emails that Morocco gained any official concessions in terms of U.S. policy other than potentially the good will of the next president. But the image of the Clintons seeking out a foreign head of state for cash is not a good look. And as Abedin pointed out, Hillary Clinton “knows it.”

That is why the Moroccan episode is such a quintessentially Clinton controversy. It’s not as if they are tone-deaf politicians. Like so many other “scandals”—from the alleged renting out of the Lincoln bedroom in 1990s, to the pardon of Marc Rich, to Hillary’s use of a private email server—the Clintons seem to know that what they are doing will look bad and raise questions of ethics and corruption, and yet convinced of their own righteousness, they do it anyway. And the fact that these lapses continue to repeat themselves so long into their time in the public arena offers little hope that the next four years of a possible Clinton White House would be any different.



http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... ks/505043/

[rowan]

Coco has only expressed her own ignorance of the English language and attempted to discredit somebody who doesn't think as she does by misinterpreting what they've written. You can't have an intelligent discussion on that basis.

If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.

But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.

If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.

"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"

That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.

And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.

Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.

Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:

"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/21/ ... f-qaddafi/

[rowan]

Are you enjoying being played at your own game, by the way?

Coco has only expressed her own ignorance of the English language and attempted to discredit somebody who doesn't think as she does by misinterpreting what they've written. You can't have an intelligent discussion on that basis.

If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.

But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.

If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.

"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"

That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.

And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.

Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.

Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:

"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/21/ ... f-qaddafi/

[rowan]

Are you enjoying being played at your own game, by the way?

Coco has only expressed her own ignorance of the English language and attempted to discredit somebody who doesn't think as she does by misinterpreting what they've written. You can't have an intelligent discussion on that basis.

If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.

But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.

If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.

"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"

That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.

And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.

Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.

Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:

"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/21/ ... f-qaddafi/

Wow

ndrew Harnik/AP
Associated Press
Sunday 16 October 2016 21.18 BST Last modified on Saturday 22 October 2016 16.46 BST
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Hillary Clinton avoided direct criticism of Wall Street as she examined the causes and responses to the 2008 financial crisis during a series of paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, according to transcripts released by WikiLeaks.

Analysis Clinton senses big victory after Trump's week of self-inflicted defeat
Republican in tailspin over lewd remarks and alleged sexual misconduct as one GOP strategist says ‘any other Democrat would be 15 points ahead, nationwide’
Read more
Three transcripts, released Saturday as part of the hack of her campaign chairman’s emails, did not contain any damning revelations showing she was unduly influenced by contributions from the banking industry, as her Republican opponent Donald Trump has said. Still, her soft-handed approach in the speeches may remind liberals of fears, raised by her former Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, that the party’s nominee is too close to Wall Street to be an effective check on its excesses if elected.

In October 2013, the transcripts show, Clinton told bankers she had “great relations” and worked closely with Wall Street as New York’s senator, and said “the jury is still out” on whether the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, enacted after the crisis, were appropriate. She said more openness from the start could have prevented the uproar on Wall Street over those reforms.

“What happened, how did it happen, how do we prevent it from happening? You guys help us figure it out, and let’s make sure that we do it right this time,” she told the bankers, according to the transcripts.

Working to relate her speech to her audience, Clinton likened her experience as secretary of state to finance, saying: “It’s like anybody’s balance sheet,” with both opportunities and potential liabilities. In one exchange, a conference participant from Texas told Clinton that she had “the honor to raise money for you” during her 2008 presidential campaign.

Clinton responded: “You are the smartest people.”

In the hard-fought Democratic primary, Sanders repeatedly called on Clinton to release the transcripts of her speeches to Wall Street, some of which earned her hundreds of thousands of dollars. In an ironic twist, the transcripts ended up becoming public because her campaign aides had distributed them among themselves in an effort to prepare for any attacks she might face. Those internal campaign emails were then leaked in the hack of campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails.

Clinton’s campaign neither confirmed nor denied that the speech transcripts and leaked Podesta emails were authentic. Clinton’s team has accused Russia’s government of hacking Podesta’s emails, and the Obama administration has formally blamed Moscow for a series of breaches affecting US political groups.

“There is no getting around it: Donald Trump is cheering on a Russian attempt to influence our election through a crime reminiscent of Watergate, but on a more massive scale,” said a Clinton spokesman, Glen Caplin.

The transcripts, all from 2013, include speeches and question-and-answer sessions with Clinton at a Builders and Innovators Summit, an Alternative Investment Management Summit and a gathering of CEOs, all hosted by Goldman Sachs.

In another speech, Clinton said that after 2010 leak of US diplomatic cables, she had to go on an “apology tour” while serving as Barack Obama’s secretary of state.

In those cables, US officials and diplomats characterized some foreign leaders as “vain, egotistical, power hungry, corrupt. And we knew they were. This was not fiction.”

“I had grown men cry,” Clinton recalled. “I mean, literally. ‘I am a friend of America, and you say these things about me?’”

Clinton said she apologized to world leaders by saying ambassadors “get carried away – they want to all be literary people”.

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, then told Clinton that she had put on “an Italian accent”.

“Have a sense of humor,” Clinton replied.

“And so you said, Silvio,” Blankfein answered, alluding to the then Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

She praised other leaders, including Chinese president Xi Jinping, who had assumed power in the fall of 2012. Clinton described Xi as “a more sophisticated, more effective public leader” than his predecessor, Hu Jintao, and said that he could “work a room”.

“You can have him make small talk with you, which he has done with me,” she said.

Clinton also told bankers that she would have liked to see the US intervene in Syria “as covertly as is possible” – and complained about reports to the press.

“We used to be much better at this than we are now,” she said. “Now, you know, everybody can’t help themselves. They have to go out and tell their friendly reporters and somebody else: look what we’re doing and I want credit for it.”

[rowan]

Coco has only expressed her own ignorance of the English language and attempted to discredit somebody who doesn't think as she does by misinterpreting what they've written. You can't have an intelligent discussion on that basis.

If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.

But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.

If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.

"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"

That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.

And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.

Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.

Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:

"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/21/ ... f-qaddafi/

good story here:

Fresh off of throwing the Democratic National Convention into turmoil after proving that party officials had conspired to sabotage Bernie Sanders' campaign, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced that he has some even more damaging material in his trove of hacked emails — this time involving Hillary Clinton pushing to arm jihadists in Syria, including ISIS.
"

http://www.dailywire.com/news/7960/wiki ... es-barrett#

[jared_7]

Jill Stein makes some of the right noises, but I can't quite filter through the interweb noise regarding some of her homeopathy and vaccine statements. Yes, I know she is a pediatrician, but Ben Carson is a neurosurgen.

Anyway, the Federal Reserve would have her assassinated if she got too close to government.

I was a bit iffy as well because it was framed as an actual issue, but I haven't found any actual evidence of her supposed views on vaccines. In fact I've seen at least half a dozen interviews where she has been quite blunt in her views.

I was actually quite disappointed with Last Week tonight a couple of weeks ago, they did a proper stitch up job on the Greens. In fact, the last month or so has really shown a political skew to the program which is a shame (in fairness HBO is owned by the second largest donor to the Clinton campaign), it's gone the way of the Daily show.

It's in the countries corporate interests to keep it to 2 parties, and it shows.

[jared_7]

Also, does anyone else find the multi-level quoting really annoying?? Especially on mobile, you basically get 100 lines of 4-5 quoted posts for a single line reply.

[rowan]

Jill Stein makes some of the right noises, but I can't quite filter through the interweb noise regarding some of her homeopathy and vaccine statements. Yes, I know she is a pediatrician, but Ben Carson is a neurosurgen.

Anyway, the Federal Reserve would have her assassinated if she got too close to government.

I was a bit iffy as well because it was framed as an actual issue, but I haven't found any actual evidence of her supposed views on vaccines. In fact I've seen at least half a dozen interviews where she has been quite blunt in her views.

I was actually quite disappointed with Last Week tonight a couple of weeks ago, they did a proper stitch up job on the Greens. In fact, the last month or so has really shown a political skew to the program which is a shame (in fairness HBO is owned by the second largest donor to the Clinton campaign), it's gone the way of the Daily show.

It's in the countries corporate interests to keep it to 2 parties, and it shows.

The Greens have been largely ignored by the mainstream media, which has basically created a reality TV show out of the entire election process.

[morepork]

Jill Stein makes some of the right noises, but I can't quite filter through the interweb noise regarding some of her homeopathy and vaccine statements. Yes, I know she is a pediatrician, but Ben Carson is a neurosurgen.

Anyway, the Federal Reserve would have her assassinated if she got too close to government.

I was a bit iffy as well because it was framed as an actual issue, but I haven't found any actual evidence of her supposed views on vaccines. In fact I've seen at least half a dozen interviews where she has been quite blunt in her views.

I was actually quite disappointed with Last Week tonight a couple of weeks ago, they did a proper stitch up job on the Greens. In fact, the last month or so has really shown a political skew to the program which is a shame (in fairness HBO is owned by the second largest donor to the Clinton campaign), it's gone the way of the Daily show.

It's in the countries corporate interests to keep it to 2 parties, and it shows.

She yes, but I'm not convinced about Green science policy as a whole. Prepared to be wrong but.

Oliver needs to pull out and finish if his edge has definitely been blunted. Her is doing some stand up in New York/Philly/Joisey in the upcoming weeks and it would be interesting to see if he is sharper in that format than in front of a camera owned by The Man.

[rowan]

Stein is anti-war and wants to stop US support for Israel. That's precisely why she should be elected, but precisely why she won't be, because the people of America do not determine American foreign policy, the lobby groups do. What Stein has to say about Clinton:


“Well, we know what kind of Secretary of State she was,” Stein said in her response. “[Hillary] is in incredible service to Wall Street and to the war profiteers. She led the way in Libya and she’s trying to start an air war with Russia over Syria, which means, if Hillary gets elected, we’re kinda going to war with Russia, folks…a nuclear-armed power.”

[belgarion]

Rowan, just a suggestion but I think if you stoped quoting your own posts just to add another single
video clip you might get people understanding/agreeing eith your comments abit more. I know I agree
with some of what you say but can't be bothered looking at the video clips as you just seem to repeating
the same post.

[jared_7]

She yes, but I'm not convinced about Green science policy as a whole. Prepared to be wrong but.

Oliver needs to pull out and finish if his edge has definitely been blunted. Her is doing some stand up in New York/Philly/Joisey in the upcoming weeks and it would be interesting to see if he is sharper in that format than in front of a camera owned by The Man.

You would obviously know a hell of a lot more than me, brother. I'm not really sure of "science policy" for any of the major parties other than well known things like global warming where I would imagine they fall in much closer to what the science says than the 2 main parties. What areas are you talking about? Does the government at a federal level determine funding (or lack of) for specific areas?

[OptimisticJock]

WTF is going on in here?

[rowan]

I agree with Stein about the threat of full scale war with Russia here, and we all know that basically means WWIII. People have been talking about this for so long that it's basically dismissed without genuine consideration any more, but just look how close we are: While the Syrian army is fighting the terrorists with support from Russia, NATO member Turkey is actively supporting the anti-government rebels and bombing the Kurds (who are credited with leading the fight against ISIS). Another NATO member Belgium has been accused of bombing a government-held village just recently and killing civilians, while America is also inside Syrian borders dropping bombs without any permission from anybody, and recently wiped out 80 Syrian soldiers "by accident," allowing the terrorists (who they created in the first place) to regain vital territory. & We've got Russia threatening to fire on America if it attacks the Syrian army again, and Syria threatening to fire on Turkey if it continues to bomb the Kurds. This is precisely what the Trump charade has been designed to distract our attention from. Meanwhile various British politicians are accusing Russia and Syria of war crimes, because it's not 'collateral damage' when our enemies do it, and Hillary Clinton, who destroyed Libya (among countless other crimes) during her term as US Secretary of State, is about to be elected president while pledging to enforce a no-fly zone in Syria, remove Assad and get tough with Putin. If she follows through with those threats, and if NATO members continue to operate within Syria illegally, we are very likely headed for a major international conflict. The only way out is if Russia backs down and Assad steps aside and allows Syria to become another puppet state under growing US hegemony. & that may well lead to conflict with Iran, who will thus find themselves completely isolated. But I suspect even WWIII will not concen Westerners too much, provided it is staged in the Middle East and does not find its way to their doorstep.

[Coco]

Rowan, you probably fuck off with that broad brush. People in America are well aware of the military industrial complex and the need to reign it in. There is still a beating heart in the 4th estate under all that reality TV and info-news, and there is dialogue on the ground. I see it because I live here. The racist fire and brimstone wankers make the mainstream media, but they are not a majority. I agree with you on the need to shake up the establishment and get power back in the people's hands, but sweet jesus, not every American is a clone of Carl Rove FFS. Remember there is a lot of diversity in this country.

This. Very well said Porkster.

You are my boi Coco.

That'll do Porkster. That'll do.

[rowan]

Already answered that, Coco. See below. You're really showing your true colors now, after your indignant rant about sexism. What a hypocrite you turned out to be! You very clearly have no interest in this discussion from a moral perspective whatsoever.

Coco has only expressed her own ignorance of the English language and attempted to discredit somebody who doesn't think as she does by misinterpreting what they've written. You can't have an intelligent discussion on that basis.
#

[morepork]

Gold Star for Rowan's English Comprehension Chart.

[rowan]

Gold star for reducing the discussion to primary school level because somebody did not think as you do.

But you really ought to work on your English grammar so that you don't misinterpret people so often. Unless, of course, you do it deliberately...

[Coco]

Coco has only expressed her own ignorance of the English language and attempted to discredit somebody who doesn't think as she does by misinterpreting what they've written. You can't have an intelligent discussion on that basis.

If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.

But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.

If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.

"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"

That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.

And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.

Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.

Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:

"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/21/ ... f-qaddafi/

Rowan, first off.. Please do us all a favor and stop requoting youself, and posting the long stories, then the link. I think we are all smart enough to just click and read a simple link.

Secondly, please explain what you mean by the first para-rant above. I'd love to respond to it, but cannot help but think you are projecting your own misinterpretation.

Please try to remember that you will have to dumb it down for me, as I am a white-middle-class-American-woman that has no grasp on any life experience, or common sense.

Thank you in advance.

[rowan]

Coco, first off. Please do us all a favor and stop requoting youself, because others can do the same just to show you that it's really not clever.

& if you misinterpret people that is due either to your own ignorance or narrow-mindedness, perhaps both.

& do stop trying to play the gender card on here because you are clearly not sincere in that regard and are quite possibly more guilty of sexism than anyone else on this forum, judging by the way you've abused the issue.

Now, can we get back to the discussion??

[morepork]

Sweet jesus.

[Coco]

Coco, first off. Please do us all a favor and stop requoting youself, because others can do the same just to show you that it's really not clever.

& if you misinterpret people that is due either to your own ignorance or narrow-mindedness, perhaps both.

& do stop trying to play the gender card on here because you are clearly not sincere in that regard and are quite possibly more guilty of sexism than anyone else on this forum, judging by the way you've abused the issue.

Now, can we get back to the discussion??

I'm an abuser of the gender card? Oh woe is me. Here have a binky and a blankie.

[rowan]

Exactly. I've already shown you many quotes from the mainstream press about Trump's supporters being mostly white males, but somehow you regard it as taboo to suggest a lot of Clinton's support is coming from white females. That's hypocrisy, plain and simple. I don't think Americans even understand what the word feminism means, because day-time TV has twisted the entire issue out of shape so badly.